But what causes people to abort their order? Part of it likely comes down to ease of ordering, and the stats from Barilliance back this up, with highest abandoned cart rates happening on mobile devices.

Desktop: 73.07% average shopping cart abandonment rate.

Tablet: 80.74% average shopping cart abandonment rate.

Mobile: 85.65% average shopping cart abandonment rate.

Other reasons why people might not complete an order, also according to Barilliance's data, include:

Unexpected shipping or other undisclosed costs

Having to create a new account

Just conducting research (not ready to buy yet)

Technical glitches, or security concerns

Long and confusing checkout, or bad return policy

Declined credit card

With all of these in mind, we can devise a good strategy to follow-up (especially with those who were not ready to buy quite yet!).

How Online Cart Abandonment Differs From Offline Sales

As a teenager, I worked in a retail store and learned a lot about buying psychology.

Think about it: when you go to the store in person, if you pick up an item and walk to the cash register… it’s unlikely you’ll change your mind.

But you might walk around the store first, and decide to put the item back on the shelf… and walk out.

An astute salesperson might notice your behavior and ask if you have any questions, if you want to try things on, or if they can take these items to the register for you.

That personal touch can save a sale.

The best service oriented sales people are not afraid to talk to potential customers and make sure they've found what they needed.

If only there was a way to use this approach in an online sales setting… Well there is, and it’s called abandoned cart email follow-up.

Why Abandoned Cart Follow-Up Automation Works

Just like the sales person who notices you might be changing your mind and getting ready to walk out, with online automation marketing you can intervene before you lose a sale.

How? By capturing a name and email address before you ask for credit card or payment details.

But what if they fill in their name and email, but get distracted before they can fill out their payment information?

That’s when you apply a tag in your automation marketing platform, and start the abandoned cart follow-up sequence.

This is a simple sequence of emails that reminds the potential customer that they started to buy but didn’t finish.

You can use these emails to continue the service-oriented sales conversation… just like you would in person, you can ask questions and have people reply to get clarifications.

But do these emails really work?

According to stats collected by Moosend, 45% of cart abandonment emails are opened, and from there 21% of people click through and 50% of these people complete their orders.

Not all abandoned cart email sequence follow-up campaigns are created equal, so let's take a look at what worked for us.

How We Used an Abandoned Cart Sequence to Recapture 43% of Our Lost Sales

At AccessAlly, we know that buying software is a commitment and that people might get cold feet when signing up.

So we use our abandoned cart functionality, and if someone doesn’t complete their order within a few hours of starting the process…

We kick off an email sequence, which starts off by asking if there were any technical problems during the ordering process.

With a global business, sometimes credit cards from other countries decline, or a browser crashes…

I prefer to keep the first few emails as non-emotional as possible, and focus on getting the potential client to click back to finish their order.

Who knows, maybe their kids walked into the room, their credit card was in their other pair of pants, or they had an appointment to get to.

After the first few emails (spaced a few days apart), we move into more benefit-focused emails. These are the ones with the testimonials, case studies, and reasons why they’ll benefit from signing up and completing their order.

Finally, we offer a one-time only savings incentive if they purchase within the next few days. This is handled by AccessAlly’s coupon functionality, and adds real individual scarcity.

All told, our abandoned cart email sequence comes in at 6 emails that get progressively more emphatic. If they don’t purchase within this sequence, then we back off and assume it wasn’t the right time.

What NOT to Do in Your Abandoned Cart Follow-Up

Okay, now you might be intrigued because recapturing an extra 43% of your lost sales sounds awesome…

But there are ways to piss off your potential customers, if you don’t set up your abandoned cart automation the right way!

The worst thing you can do is to use a tech stack that doesn’t track abandoned and successful purchases properly… and offer a discount to people who just finished ordering.

You laugh, but it has happened and you will lose brand loyalty and customers faster than you can say “broken cart”.

Here's how this recently went down: a friend of mine purchased a product, and got the welcome email to download it… and then 1 hour later, they got an email offering a discount on the product they just bought.

How did the company handle it? They didn’t own up to the automation mess-up, and just said “thanks for buying”.

If you’re going to set up an abandoned cart sequence, you need to have that service-oriented attitude and make it right for your customers if things don’t work as expected. Offer to apply the discount, or give them something else to make up for the mistake.

The first step in getting this project underway is to set up a shopping cart platform that has the ability to track abandoned carts.

There are a few things you'll want to look for in shopping cart abandonment solutions, like the flexibility to tag and automate follow-up based on what someone started purchasing.

Many older ecommerce systems are behind the times here, so you’ll need to do a little research to see what will work with your existing set up.

If you use a modern automation marketing platform like ConvertKit, Ontraport, Drip, ActiveCampaign, or Infusionsoft, then the AccessAlly plugin for WordPress is a great option.

AccessAlly has a 3-step checkout process, which captures the name and email before moving onto payment details.

It then applies a tag to your email marketing platform for this potential client, which allows you to kickstart an automation if the transaction isn’t completed within the specified amount of time you select.

Write a Sequence of Abandoned Cart Win-Back Emails

Now that you’ve got the right systems to set up your abandoned cart automation, it’s time to write the win-back emails.

Here are the emails I propose:

Oops – did something happen?

Send 1-2 hours later. Ask if there was a technical issue, and link back to order form to complete.

Complete your order

Send 4-24 hours later. Link back to the order form to complete checkout. Ask for a reply if they run into any issues.

Here’s what people are saying

Send 24 hours later. Testimonials and more reasons to complete the order.

Don’t miss out

Send 3 days later. Give them a bonus or special timed offer, to get them off the fence that expires in X days.

Special offer expires soon

Send 2 days later. Remind them about the special bonus or promo code, and that it expires soon.

Last chance for bonuses

Send 1 day later. Final reminder about the bonus/promo and last call to complete the order.

Block some time on your calendar right now to dedicate to writing these emails.

Or better yet, if you sign up for AccessAlly and the Online Courses Simplified program, you’ll get swippable abandoned cart emails to take and edit for your business.

Optional: Add a Special Time Sensitive Promotion to Your Sequence

Many of the abandoned cart examples we looked at offer some sort of time sensitive special offer.

Let's be clear: you don’t have to offer these, because a simple email sequence to follow-up with those who don’t complete a purchase will result in more recaptured sales.

But if you want to increase conversions even more, consider adding something time sensitive to your abandoned cart emails.

Depending on your price point and products, it may make sense to discount or to add extra bonuses to get people to say yes.

Remember, these are people who were interested enough to start the purchasing process… they’re warm and they need some reassurance that they’re making a good decision.

That’s where offering additional bonuses can help: give them an additional digital product or course, maybe some done-for-you templates or special access to you.

This process is called “stacking the bonuses”, and you want to sell the free bonuses so they really understand how this will help them achieve their goals.

Similarly, if you decide to offer an expiring coupon or discount, make sure that you focus on why you’re giving them this break. It should be to help them and serve them, and not just to make another sale for your business.

Any Abandoned Cart Questions We Can Answer?

Whether you’ve been on the end of an abandoned cart sequence that got you to buy (I know I have!) or you’re just getting ready to set one up for your business…

I’d love to answer any questions you have about abandoned cart emails and automation, so let’s hear it.